Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences-CIAMB, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil.
National Institute of Education and Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
PLoS One. 2021 May 13;16(5):e0251156. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251156. eCollection 2021.
The Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) is the second largest river of Southeast Asia and one of the rivers with the highest load of suspended sediment delivered to the sea in the world. The Ayeyarwady is the lifeline of Myanmar which concentrates the majority of the population and GDP of the country. It is the main way of transport, a source of fluvial aggregates for development projects, hydropower, and the basin plays a major role in food supply and irrigation. Despite the Ayeyarwady ranking amongst the world's largest rivers and its vital importance to Myanmar, scarce research has been undertaken to understand its morphodynamics and sediment transport regime. Current load estimates still heavily rely on the only systematic study of sediment transport dating back to the 19th century. Here, we provide a novel estimate for the recent washload sediment transport based on a field calibrated remote sensing model of surface suspended sediments concentrations. We show that the Ayeyarwady has likely become the river with the second or third largest delivery of washload to the sea in the world since it has so far been much less affected by damming compared to the vast majority of other rivers.
伊洛瓦底江（缅甸语：အရွတ်ကျွန်း）是东南亚第二大河，也是世界上向海洋输送悬浮物负荷最高的河流之一。伊洛瓦底江是缅甸的生命线，集中了全国大部分人口和 GDP。它是主要的交通方式，是发展项目、水电所需的河流骨料的来源，流域在粮食供应和灌溉方面发挥着重要作用。尽管伊洛瓦底江是世界上最大的河流之一，对缅甸至关重要，但对其地貌动力学和泥沙输移机制的研究却很少。目前的负荷估算仍然严重依赖于 19 世纪唯一一项对泥沙输移的系统研究。在这里，我们根据一个经过实地校准的悬浮泥沙浓度遥感模型提供了一个最近冲刷负荷泥沙输移的新估算。我们表明，伊洛瓦底江可能已经成为世界上向海洋输送冲刷负荷第二或第三大的河流，因为与其他大多数河流相比，它受到水坝影响的程度要小得多。
